Salon Series

What is a Salon?

Dating back to the literary and philosophical movements of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, a salon is “a fashionable assemblage of notables (such as literary figures, artists, or statesmen) held by custom at the home of a prominent person.”At the Heller Center, junior faculty present their research to the campus and wider Colorado Springs community. The audience may choose – or not - to read a pre-posted selection of the professor’s writing before the event. After a brief lecture, the floor opens for questions and conversation – all with wine and cheese.

ㅤHeller Center Salon Series

Upcoming Salon

Date: Thursday,October 10
Time: 7 pm 

Haruki Eda
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

Fall 2024 salon speaker Haruki Eda

Collective Memory and Community Solidarity in the Korean Diaspora

Haruki will discuss how diasporic Koreans produce counter-hegemonic collective memory through site visits, storytelling, and public memorials related to historical atrocities and ongoing peace struggles.

Haruki Eda (he/they) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at UCCS, where he teaches on race/ethnicity, globalization and development, Asian American communities, war and social change, and qualitative research. medieval ostriches, maps and digital technology.

Haruki’s research interests include community organizing, ethnic identity, nationalism, and gender/sexuality, in the geopolitical context of East Asia and North America. His book project examines the Korean diaspora’s role in peace, reunification, and liberation from queer/feminist perspectives.


February 2025 Series

Josh Vandiver
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science

vandiver

What is Masculinism?

Are we witnessing the emergence of a new ideology centering men and masculinities? We consider examples of masculinism ranging from the online “manosphere” to Supreme Court jurisprudence. Dr Josh Vandiver is an assistant professor of Political Science at UCCS. A fifth-generation Coloradan, he completed his undergraduate training at Harvard College and his doctorate at Princeton University.

Josh Vandiver is an assistant professor of Political Science at UCCS. A fifth-generation Coloradan, he completed his undergraduate training at Harvard College and his doctorate at Princeton University.

Josh Vandiver researches in the areas of political theory, history of political thought, and gender studies with a focus on radical movements and thinkers. 


April 2025 Series

Monet Reynoso 
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

Monet Reynoso

Death & Diploma Mills: Liberatory Suicide Prevention for Veterans in Contemporary America  

Monet will discuss how focuses on mental health, higher education and the politics of refusal in a post-truth society. Are we witnessing the emergence of a new ideology centering men and masculinities? We consider examples of masculinism ranging from the online “manosphere” to Supreme Court jurisprudence.

Originally from Tempe, AZ, Nina Monet Reynoso moved to Los Angeles to study psychology at Occidental College where she graduated in 2016. Following a brief stint in finance, she decided that a career in education was more aligned with her values and went for her MA in Higher Education at UCLA in 2017. Dr. Reynoso completed their PhD in Social Sciences and Comparative Education with Dr. Daniel Solórzano as their advisor in the fall of 2022. They began teaching at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Spring 2024 in the department of Women's and Ethnic Studies (WEST) as an expert in Black studies. Her classes highlight elements of international and domestic military history, the GI Bill, Black feminisms, critical media studies, and more. When Dr. Reynoso is not teaching, they are often spending time in the kitchen, at the pottery wheel, or planning their next trip.

Dr. Reynoso’s research interests center around the military-industrial-higher-education-complex and its translation to popular media. Research interests also include ontologies of abolition, marronage, and fugitivity within spaces of marginality (i.e. fragging, wildcat strikes, etc.).

Past Salon Series

“Refuge of Oppression:” Abolitionist Perspectives on the United States as a Place of Refuge

Heller Center 2024 Spring Salon

Evan Taparata
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Spring 2024

The Chief and the Governor: Material Culture and Comanche/Spanish Diplomacy in Late 18thCentury New Mexico

Winter 2024 salon web ad

Fernando Feliu-Moggi
Chair of the Department of Languages and Cultures, Professor of Spanish
Department of Languages and Cultures
Winter 2024

Ghost Cameras, invisible inks and forgotten texts: the next generation of multispectral imaging to recover lost documents

Heller Center 2023 Fall Salon Series

Helen Davies
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Fall 2023

Barriers to Honesty in Communication - What it Means for Leadership, Life, and Work

Heller Center Spring 2023 Salon Series

Elena Svetieva
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication / Director of Leadership Communication
Spring 2023

Voices without Borders

Winter 2023 Salon - Abghari

Haleh Abghari
Senior Instructor
Department of Visual and Performing Arts/ Director of Voice
Winter 2023

Hypernostalgia in Contemporary American Visual Culture

Heller Center Fall Salon Series
Kristen Galvin
Assistant Professor
Department of Visual and Preforming Arts/ Director of Art History
Fall 2022
 

Climate Consciousness: Empire, Energy, Progress

Heller Center Salon Series

Dylan M. Harris
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Geography & Environmental Studies
Spring 2022

Educational failure, Christianity, and the Project of Teaching Culture in the Age of TikTok

Heller Center Salon Series Bayuga Feb2022 with logos
George Bayuga
Instructor
Dept. of Anthropology
Spring 2022

Nocturnal Revelling: The HMS Dolphin, The Story of the Ship that Lost Its Integrity

Tuaone Salon web ad
Ilaheva Tua’one
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Women’s & Ethnic Studies
Fall 2021

Cab Calloway And The Jive Drug

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Max Shulaman
Assistant Professor
Department of Visual and Performing Arts- Theater
Spring 2021
 

Exploring Setting and Narrative in Hemingway's "Wine of Wyoming"

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Susan Vandagriff
Kraemer Family Library
Spring 2021

Confucian Ritual and Moral Education

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Colin Lewis
Professor
Department of Philosophy
Spring 2021

Is Wonder a Liberal Virtue?

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Steven Pittz
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
Winter 2021

Changing Times, Changing Families: Marital Status and Health in an Era of Rapid Family Changes

A heller center Digital Salon Series
Esther Lamidi
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology
Summer 2020

The Philosophy of Protest: Fighting for Justice Without Going to War

Hellon salon Series A philosophy of protest
Jennifer Kling
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
Fall 2019

War non War

war non war
Stephen Carter
Assistant Professor
English Department
Spring 2019

Nostalgic For The Unfamiliar: The Ethnic Return Migration of Korean Americans

Sociology and Women & Ethnic Studies Fall 2018
Stephen Suh
Assistant Professor
Sociology and Women & Ethnic Studies
Fall 2018

Decolonizing the Ludlow Massacre Site

Heller Center Salon Series Department of Anthropology Spring 2018
Karin Larkin
Assistant Professor and Curator
Department of Anthropology
Spring 2018

Our Secular Eighteenth Century

heller center Digital Salon Series Department of English Fall 2017
David Diamond
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Fall 2017